The Papacy and Eastern Christian Traditions Working Group: Chris Schabel (University of Cyprus), "The Greeks Are Heretics! The Dominican Reign of Terror in the Early Fifteenth Century"
Please join us for the first meeting of the semester of the Papacy and Eastern Christian Traditions working group. Prof. Christopher Schabel (University of Cyprus and French National Center for Scientific Research) will be joining us in person to give a talk entitled: "The Greeks are Heretics! The Dominican Reign of Terror in the Early Fifteenth Century."
Abstract: Putin’s Russia frequently taps into a deep Orthodox current of resentment against the West, which is commonly traced back to 1054 or even to Photios. This obviously adds to the significance of the activities of such entities as the Notre Dame working group The Papacy and Eastern Christian Traditions and the database Repertorium Auctorum Polemicorum. One crucial phase in this long history is the prelude to the Councils of Basel and Florence, in which the Dominicans were the dominant Western participants. Dominican university theologians never cared much for the Greeks, but this Echthrohellenic attitude was not shared by most other regulars and seculars in the medieval faculties of theology. I will argue that the earlier Dominican theologians’ hard line against the Greeks became even harder among the Dominican polemicists in the decades before the councils. This is clear in the writings of the inquisitor Philip of Pera from the late 1350s and, more extremely, in two other polemical works inspired by Philip and written in the early fifteenth century. It was in this atmosphere that the Dominicans managed to take over control of Western doctrinal discussions at Florence, helping doom the union agreement that was signed in 1439.
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